Bloodlines (57 page)

"Irene, I need your help."

"Whatever I can do, Helen."

"I need someone to take me over to Lillian's as soon as possible."

"All right, I think I can manage that." I told her I'd be right over.

The morning was chilly and overcast, the kind of dull weather that saves itself for the weekend, when it can really make you miserable. Helen was bundled into a coat that probably fit her once, but she seemed lost in it now. She complained that the Kelly women's cars were either too high or too low as I helped her into the Jeep.

She seemed extremely agitated, but after an attempt to get her to tell me what was on her mind was met with a polite but firm rebuff, I stayed quiet.

She noticed and said, "Tell me about your search through the storage unit. Anything interesting?"

"A great deal." I told her about going through O'Connor's early diaries, but given her mood, decided not to tell her of his first impressions of her. Instead I generally described some of the things I had found so far. I wasn't entirely sure she was listening to me. We spent the last few minutes of the ride in silence.

When we reached Lillian's house and pulled into the big circular drive, she said, "This won't take long." Then she paused and said, "I've been rude, and you've been so kind. I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it. I'm fine."

"That's my girl!" she said.

"Need help getting out?"

"No," she said, and jumped down, scaring the hell out of me.

I saw her walk up to the house--apparently uninjured--and knock on the door. I waited.

She rang the bell. I waited.

She knocked again. I got out of the car.

"Was Lillian expecting you?" I asked.

"Of course she was." She turned toward the house and shouted, "That's why she's not answering the damned door!"

"Did you call her?"

"She has that obnoxious thingamajig that allows a person to screen calls."

"An answering machine?"

"No! I've got an answering machine. She's got--oh, what do they call it?"

"Caller ID?"

"Yes! That's it! Incredibly rude."

"Are you telling me she got a call from you and refused to answer when she saw your number?"

"Yes."

"And you came over here, anyway."

"If you have somewhere else to be, you needn't wait for me. I'll stay here until she"--turning toward the house again--"opens the damned door!"

I took my cell phone out of my purse. "What's Lillian's phone number?"

Her eyes lit up in appreciation. She gave me the number.

Lillian answered on the second ring.

"Hello, Irene."

"Lillian, I'm on your front porch. Helen's here, too. Please don't make her stand out here. I'm afraid she'll get a chill, and even if that doesn't kill her, the guilt will kill me."

"That stubborn old woman!"

"Please, Lillian."

"All right, all right. Might as well get this over and done with."

A pale, thin housekeeper, who must have been just on the other side of the door--the damned door, Helen would have said--opened it and asked us to come in.

"I miss Hastings," Helen murmured, not as softly as she probably thought she did.

"Now, Swanie, why on earth have you dragged Irene into this?" Lillian asked as she came forward to meet us.

"Because she and Lydia are the closest thing I have to daughters these days," Helen said sharply. "Granddaughters, I suppose I should say. The point is, I'm old as hell and I want to make sure that if I croak in my sleep, someone else will know full well what you are up to."

Lillian looked as if she had been slapped.

"Yes," Helen said. "Unlike some people I know--"

"That's enough!" Lillian snapped.

They stood glaring at each other.

I glanced toward the housekeeper, whose wide blue eyes indicated she was a fascinated audience.

I ventured onto the battlefield with, "Maybe we could move into a room where we could discuss this calmly and privately."

They both fixed their glares on me, seemed to recognize that I was not the enemy--yet, anyway--and thawed a bit. Lillian glanced at the housekeeper. "Yes. Let's go into the library."

"Do you need me to bring anything, ma'am?" the housekeeper asked hopefully. She had an Eastern European accent that I couldn't quite place.

"No, thank you, Bella," Lillian replied.

"I'll just clear the--"

"Let that wait, please," Lillian said. "Thank you. That's all for now."

In the library, a fire was already burning in the hearth, a coffee urn had been brought in, and several china cups--three of which had been used-- rested on saucers on a side table.

"Oh, Lillian, how could you?" Helen said in despair. "You've already done it, haven't you?"

"Yes," Lillian said.

"Done what?" I asked.

"Agreed to give a blood sample for a DNA test," she said offhandedly. "Please be seated, Helen. You, too, Irene. The coffee's still fresh and hot. Would you care for some?"

We both agreed to it. I studied Lillian while she played hostess. She was impeccably dressed, as always. A lovely silk suit. Simple but striking jewelry. She was still a woman with presence, and appeared younger than her years. But in ways that weren't easy to name, she hadn't aged as well as my aunt Mary or Helen. Although she had apparently had face-lifts, no one seemed to have done the same for her spirits. Unhappiness had made its mark over the decades. Although she enjoyed far more luxuries and comforts in life than either Mary or Helen, I found myself feeling sorry for her.

We all sat. We all drank coffee. No one said a word. Hell if I was going to be the one to light the fuse. I was starting to worry about Helen, who looked twice as upset as she had been before we arrived. I couldn't figure it out. I knew Max must be happy. Why was Helen angry?

Eventually, Lillian said, "How have you been, Irene? I haven't seen you in a long time."

"Fine," I said. "And you?"

Instead of answering, she asked me about Frank. Easy for me to talk about Frank.

After about five minutes of this, Helen suddenly said, "You really don't care about him, do you? Not really."

"Frank?" Lillian asked.

"You know I don't mean Frank! You don't care about Max!"

"Of course I care about him. That's why I did what I did."

"Oh, really? What do you suppose is going to happen when the Yeagers learn that you've submitted blood for a DNA test?"

"Mitch is not stupid, Helen--"

"I never inspected him as closely as some others did."

"--however little you may think of him," Lillian went on. "He has known for several years now that this would be possible. News stories about the power of DNA tests have abounded recently, and I'm sure he has imagined that Max would want to know his origins. Mitch has been thinking that at any time, I could participate in the testing, and Mitch would have awkward questions to answer if Max proved to be the missing child."

She turned to me. "Perhaps it's for the best that you are here today. Perhaps a story could run in tomorrow's paper, saying I've already submitted a blood sample? If you think it would be newsworthy, that is."

"She doesn't lay out the front page, you know," Helen said. "Why can't you ever learn what it is a reporter does and does not do?"

"I can provide you with the name of the doctor who drew the blood," Lillian said, ignoring her. "And give you the name and address of the lab that has the sample--or will have it in a few hours, anyway. Max is flying it up to Seattle. He's chosen a lab up there."

"Thank God he's out of the area, anyway," Helen said.

"He'll be back Monday."

"My God," Helen said. "What can be done?"

"Nothing," Lillian said. "Will you please use that brain of yours? The key has been to get the test in progress before Mitch could do anything about it. If I waited, he might kidnap Max again, just to keep him from being tested. I felt as you did, until Max told me he was willing to take some extreme measures. Exhumations are not done quite so speedily as blood tests, Helen. If it were to become known that Kathleen would be exhumed--a thought I find unbearable to begin with--Mitch would have the time he needs to make sure something horrible happens to Max."

"What do you think has stopped him before now?" I asked.

"My very well-known refusal. Knowing that I refused the tests, and that I would fight an exhumation, has been enough."

"You egotistical fool," Helen said.

I said, "But Max might have gone to the other side of the family for help. If Warren Ducane--"

Lillian interrupted. "Mitch probably doubts that a man in hiding for over two decades will come forward just to make the parents of Max's fiancee happy."

"Exactly why is he in hiding?" I asked.

"I have no idea," Lillian answered.

"Because," Helen said, "he has known that no one--no one has a longer memory than Mitch Yeager when it comes to avenging slights or injuries. If he needs twenty years to carry out his revenge, he'll happily take that long to do it. As Lillian is fully aware."

"Yes, and Warren would be a target of that revenge," Lillian said. "He took Max away from Mitch and caused questions to be raised about Mitch and his nephews. Mitch had worked hard to make everyone forget his beginnings."

"She means," Helen said, "that his father was a good-for-nothing who abandoned his family, his mother was a drunk, and his brother was a thief and a bootlegger. Mitch's own business practices have never been entirely aboveboard, either."

"He tried to change," Lillian said, "but there were always those who were ready to snub him or remind him of his past. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps if the Express had left him alone, he would have been just another successful businessman."

"I don't believe it!" Helen said furiously. "A woman your age cannot be so hopelessly nadve! After that speech, I could swear you're still carrying a torch for Mitch Yeager. Good God, Lillian! Have you forgotten what he's done?"

"No," Lillian said quietly. "How can you possibly ask such a thing?"

"I can ask it when you do things on impulse, things that will only hurt Max. You haven't solved a problem, Lily--you've only created new ones, as well you know. Or is this your own--" She stopped herself, with a visible effort, from finishing that sentence. "You really don't care about what this will do to Max or anyone else, do you, Lily?"

"He's all I care about in this, Helen."

"Helen," I said, "what aren't you telling me?"

That silenced them both.

"I know you both adore Max," I said. "And you know I would never want any harm to come to him, either. I'm trying to figure out what's really going on here. There are only two possible outcomes for these tests. One is that Max is Lillian's grandson."

"I feel sure he is Katy's son, don't you, Helen? He is so much like her."

"Don't play games with me, Lillian! You've put him in danger!"

"I can't help but think she's right, Lillian," I said, "although if we alert the police, they may be able to help us. Because if he is your grandson, Mitch Yeager's ties to the events of that night in 1958 will be difficult for him to refute."

"You go right ahead and tell Frank."

"But, Lillian, you have to face the fact that there is a possibility that the tests will prove he is not your grandson, which--"

"Which will again leave him with no idea who he is," Helen said. "And no real possibility of ever finding out the truth. Don't you remember what he went through when all this began? How confused and unsure he was? He'll feel he came by all his wealth and advantages dishonestly, that he has robbed the estate of some poor murdered infant who will never be found. Oh, Lily, why didn't you tell Gisella Ross's parents to stow the Mayflower Compact where the sun don't shine, right alongside the blue book and all the other trappings of their stupid snobbery?"

"You might as well ask me why I didn't assassinate Watson and Crick when I saw what their DNA discoveries might lead to," Lillian said. "Don't you see, Helen? You're the one who's being nadve. Max has never felt sure of his identity. Never. From the moment I learned that DNA was being used to determine paternity, I knew that sooner or later he would want to have DNA tests done. He has, in fact, asked many times before. He cares for my wishes, and without this added pressure from Gisella's family, perhaps I would have been able to go to my grave without having to face what I'm facing now. But the Rosses' request is only an excuse that he was all too happy to grab hold of." She sighed dramatically. "I understand they can test hair from a hairbrush. I feared it was only a matter of time before I'd discover Max combing through my brushes."

Both women fell silent again. Helen stood and said, "Irene, please take me home."

"So you see it my way now?" Lillian asked.

"Oh no, Lillian."